If you want to do an exercise that will specifically burn the fat from your stomach, you're out of luck. The idea of spot reduction -- reducing fat on specific parts of the body -- is a myth. As physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist Sheila Dugan, M.D. puts it, "You can't reduce fat from specific parts of your body by exercising that body part; our bodies simply don't work that way." So doing tons of situps is not the way to go if want to melt away your belly fat.

Fat Burned from Situps

While doing situps won't target your belly specifically, it can help you lose fat in general. Doing situps at a moderate intensity for 10 minutes will burn 51 calories if you weigh 150 pounds, while doing them vigorously will burn 92 calories in 10 minutes. If you weigh less than 150 pounds, then you can expect to burn fewer calories -- and if you weigh more, you'll burn more calories. You need to burn 3,500 calories to lose a single pound, which means that you would need to do approximately 11 hours and 26 minutes worth of situps to burn just 1 pound of fat.

Better Alternatives

In an article on the University of Missouri Extension's website, exercise physiologist Stephen Ball states that the best exercises to lose belly fat, or any fat for that matter, are aerobic exercises, which are activities that involve large muscle groups and deliver oxygen quickly and efficiently to every part of the body -- like bicycling, jogging or running. Running at a speed of 10 mph, for instance, will burn 204 calories in just 10 minutes if you weigh 150 pounds -- which means you'd burn a pound of fat after running for approximately 2 hours and 52 minutes.

Advantages of Situps

While situps don't target the fat on your belly and they're not the best option for losing fat overall, they do offer benefits for your health and physique. Doing situps will strengthen your core and build your abdominal muscles. Having more muscle will increase the amount of calories that your body burns, which will help you burn fat. Also, building your abdominal muscles will firm up your stomach, helping to create the sculpted look you want -- once the fat is gone.

Thanks for the informative post even though i am not going to do body-building.

Do you do it? Hope you'd get your dream abdominal muscles

I recently started doing them after researching on it, and I thought I should share my findings. These are simple to do, they don't require any equipment and they target the abdominal / tummy area. Along with a good diet, I think they can be done regularly at home.

Is there a specific diet that you may be following along side exercising? Also have you kept the exercises up?

I think its about time I started to exercise lol. Although I do not need to burn any fat but rather gain it and also strengthen my muscles. I can feel my muscles weaken which is quite alarming :/ The struggle is finding time and motivation to exercise

Is there anyone on here who religiously exercises or has a strict diet?

The following members gave thanks to StarryNight for this post: aqua (Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:14 pm)

Is there a specific diet that you may be following along side exercising? Also have you kept the exercises up?

I think its about time I started to exercise lol. Although I do not need to burn any fat but rather gain it and also strengthen my muscles. I can feel my muscles weaken which is quite alarming :/ The struggle is finding time and motivation to exercise

I'm not on a specific diet, but I avoid overeating and eat some fruit regularly. It is easy to choose chocolate over fruit, but if we try to balance the amount by including fruit at least half the time, that is good I think.

I have been doing those exercises on my days off work (twice a week), they are simple to do and do not take much time. I think this helps with managing both time and motivation which are important for maintaining consistent exercising.

The following members gave thanks to aqua for this post: StarryNight (Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:03 pm)

I'm not on a specific diet, but I avoid overeating and eat some fruit regularly. It is easy to choose chocolate over fruit, but if we try to balance the amount by including fruit at least half the time, that is good I think.

I have been doing those exercises on my days off work (twice a week), they are simple to do and do not take much time. I think this helps with managing both time and motivation which are important for maintaining consistent exercising.

Being a chocoholic, its extremely difficult to cut down on chocolate, or replace it with something healthier. My biggest weakness is chocolate. I'm one of those that eats a lot of junk but does not gain weight. :S

I really need to start a healthy balanced diet but keep procrastinating like almost everyone! lool. Need to be productive with my free time like you!

The following members gave thanks to StarryNight for this post: aqua (Thu Jan 15, 2015 7:14 pm)

1. Avoid as many carbs as you can (white bread, pasta, potato products, white rice...etc) Swap them for brown bread. 2. Limit the amount of sugary snacks, soft drinks and junk food. Either trade crisps for sweets and have one just eat once a week). In my case, I gave up eating crisps which actually made a difference. 3. Do 15 min cardio (Zumba, aerobics...etc) every morning. Or every other morning. Slap on the zumba music, find a big space and move in a way that gets your heart beating fast. There are plently of zumba music on youtube. And you can also time yourself if you have a laptop. (If you sweat, it means it's working)4. Weigh yourself once a week in one morning. Record your weight in Kg or Stone. 5. Eat a lot of vegetables, swap chips for mange tout beans, burger baps for lettuce, eat a lot of green vegs and eat Beetroot- that will give you energy. And it's more tastier- trust me, I've done this and am happy. Load up your plate with chicken or beef and add as many vegetables of different kinds (I do courgette, lettuce, beetroot, sugarsnap peas and mushrooms) and it is filling. 6. Snack on fruits like pears, plums and grapes.

The following members gave thanks to TruthSeeker101 for this post: aqua (Wed May 06, 2015 12:06 pm)

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